Thursday, February 08, 2007

Chapter 2: The Angry Sweater People and the proliferation of wool

There were news reports about the angry sweater people. They swore to take over the world if other countries refused to buy their angora wool. The goats in Yakchew had been eating very well lately, and so had been having lots and lots of little goats sprouting from their overfull bellies. The green prickly plants had also been doing well in Yakchew, so when all the little goats saw the green prickly plants they ate them almost as fast as those hardy plants grew, and wool popped out from their bodies and over their eyes and grew so long that they often tripped and fell, and so the angry sweater people decided they had to cut the wool and make more sweaters. Since this had kept them very busy, they worked long hours, and became very angry that they had to work so much. They also were angry that no one wanted to buy their sweaters, especially during the summer, and were especially angry that no one seemed to like them (the sweater people) very much. And so every day they became angrier.

The chief of the sweater people was the angriest of all. He was so angry when he lost his two children for three days because they were buried under mountains of sweaters and his wife had decided to cook wool soup. It didn’t taste very good and he got sick, which also made him angry.

“Enough of this!” he said, so angry his face had turned red, then purple, then brown, and white once again. “What are we going to do with all these sweaters?”
“We could make sweater hats,” his wife suggested.

The chief decided that was a good idea, and for a while was not as angry. He and his wife and the people of the village made hats from some of the leftover sweaters and for a while people liked them. A couple days after the chief and his wife began making sweater hats they found their two children, who were very happy because they had been playing hide-and-seek, but were also very hungry. The chief’s wife made them wool soup, which they also did not like, and which also made them angry. So they went outside, killed one of the angora goats, and had it for supper instead. At first the chief was angry, but then he saw there was less wool for making sweaters, and since they were so far behind schedule in making sweaters and sweater hats, having one less wool making goat was a good thing. So for a while, the chief was not as angry.

But then came a day when everyone had sweaters and sweater hats, so no one else wanted any more. The chief, once again, was angry.

“What will we do now!” the chief roared, before biting a goat’s leg. The goat had been chewing on a prickly plant, turned around just in time to see the chief bite his leg, and responded by kicking the chief in the face.

“Well, let me think,” said the chief’s wife, stirring a pot of wool soup, tending to the chief’s bleeding forehead, and knitting at the same time.

“Woman, must I do everything myself!” fumed the chief. His wife said nothing, but continued to mop his head with a wet cloth, stirred the soup, and knitted.

“I’ve got it,” said the chief. “The sweater hats worked so well, we can make sweater gloves, too! Then they’ll have sweater sweaters, sweater hats, and sweater gloves. I’m glad I thought of that.” The chief was so happy about his brilliant idea that he forgot to be angry.

And so, they got to work once again. Day and night, night and day, the sweater people knit together sweaters, knit together hats, and knit together gloves. They shaved the wool from the goats so that the goats could then wear the extra sweaters and hats and gloves, but the goats mostly just ate them. They sold sweaters, hats and gloves in the street, in the neighboring villages, in the neighboring countries, and then across the sea.

Finally, everyone in the entire world had at least one pair of sweaters, hats, and gloves, and some even had three. “We’re tired of all these angora sweaters,” grumbled the people of the world. “We want something different.” And so there was an outcry by the people of the world against the sweater people, and this made the chief of the sweater people extremely angry.

“We work long hours, we make sweaters and hats and gloves, and we sell them to keep you warm! How can you be ungrateful? We can’t stop the green prickly plants from growing, and we can’t stop the goats from eating and having more little goats, and we can’t stop the wool from growing, so you’ll just have to keep buying our wool!”

Naturally, the people of the world did not like this idea at all. They liked the sweaters when it was cold, but how could you wear a sweater when it was hot? They refused to buy the wool, drew silly pictures of the angry sweater chief, and even kidnapped some of the sweater chief’s goats. And that was when the angry sweater chief decided to try to take over the world, to make the people buy their wool.

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